Random Thoughts

OH MY GOD is this the best movie ever made? IT COULD BE

OK, this isn’t the best movie ever. But it’s quite amusing.

Absolutely.

The Polly Magoo movie was so fascinating. It kinda didn’t follow through on its promise… it just couldn’t quite make it work. But it’s almost a fucking masterpiece.

This one, though… It started off strong, but now it’s just one slightly amusing scene after another. It’s got a pretty good central idea, and it looks great, but it’s getting kinda boring? Already?

It’s very pop art.

OK, I’ll say it: It’s got striking visuals, but it’s kinda tedious. It’s like a 50s sci-fi movie, but with 1968 ironic politics. I imagine they were aiming for the opposite: A 1968 political movie referencing 1950s sci-fi visuals?

Mr. Freedom. William Klein. 1968.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Wow, never seen that phone model before. It’s… odd…

This has a good noir thing going on.

This is quite amusing and, as usual with Fassbinder, I love each individual shot. But I don’t think this quite works? I mean, it’s a kind of parody/pastiche of a noir movie, but it’s just not that… funny/interesting? For this sort of thing to work, it has to be riveting, and too many scenes just don’t connect?

It’s just uneven, is what I’m saying, and uneven doesn’t work.

But the characters keep repeating “Ich gehe jetzt”, which flashed me back to this every time:

The American Soldier. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. 1970.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is absolutely magnificent! And I thought I wasn’t totally ignorant about films from this era, but I’ve never seen a film by William Klien before.

And based on the first ten minutes of this movie, he might be the best director of anything in the whole world ever!

I am the flabbergast!

I love every scene in this movie. But I’ll be really disappointed if it all doesn’t like cohere. I mean, it’s hilarious and smart and gorgeous, and it’s got a whole bunch of loose plot threads going (there’s a documentary crew, a prince?, there’s some secret agents !?!?, whaaa), and I so hoping that he’ll tie things together.

Yeah, I think this is going in the direction that I was worried about. I mean, every scene is funny (and brilliantly shot and acted) — even if this parody of psychoanalysis went on a bit long — but I think it’s basically going to be one funny scene after another until the movie ends. Without any sort of coherence.

This film is so fucking close to being a fucking masterpiece. And while they did kinda pull it together at the end, they went for the joke, once again, instead of something… more.

But I mean — the movie’s hilarious, and so stylish and smart, and it was a joy to watch.

I’m still disappointed.

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?. William Klein. 1966.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

So apparently… Katzelmacher was a success? According to the Criterion DVD cover, it enabled Fassbinder to make eight (!) moies over the next twelve (!) months.

*sniff* *sniff*

This is one of those eight movies.

This is much better than the katzenjammer film, though.

Is he wearing shoes in bed? Savage!

Is this where Biba Kopf took his name?

Yes! But no! Because the character in Berlin Alexanderplatz is also called Franz Biberkopf.

Wheel upon wheels upon oh that was that Dave Sim comic. I”M NOT GOING INSANE I SWEAR upon a box of turtles.

Finally some civilisation!

All these shots and sets are great. But it is a bit hard to pay attention.

If you held a gun to my head and demanded that I tell you the plot of this movie, I think I’d be able to lie convincingly, but I honestly have no idea what’s going on.

And I like that.

But I’m starting to realise that I don’t really like watching all movies from a single box set in a row? I mean, I love not choosing movies to see, but my previous goes at this, which have been more exciting for me, have involved, like “one movie per year”, which allows a lot of surprises, even if I’m not choosing anything.

So I think I’ll start mixing things up slightly? That is, watch different Eclipse box sets in parallel.

I KNOW> SO INTERSTING

That’s cheap rotwein. Especially since it looks like 1.5l bottles?

I also love the word “tiefkühlkost”.

(Deeply frozen foods, I guess? I almost flunked German in high school.)

Gods of the Plague. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. 1970.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Was this shot at the same time as Liebe ist etc? Looks really similar

But a different aspect ratio. Shot on 16mm?

This feel like a very improvised, low-stakes thing? Hm… wikipedia has nothing on it… ah, he DVD cover tells the story: It was filmed over nine days and released four moths later.

I think I get the point of this movie? That Germans and Germany are really, really boring? Coming through loud and clear.

I think this was clear after about three milliseconds, but it’s been three quarters of an hour, and the movie is exemplifying what it’s making fun of.

That is: I’m bored silly.

Sillier.

I guess Fassbinder wanted to say something about parochial German attitudes towards fremdarbeitern, and mash that up into a Bresson parody? But it’s not funny and it doesn’t really… work.

Love the coffee table.

Katzelmacher. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. 1969.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.